How to stage your home when selling

Home staging is an effective yet underutilised technique that can really help make a difference when selling your home. Home staging is most aptly described as preparing your home for sale by making it look as appealing as possible to a high number of potential buyers, hopefully meaning it sells quickly and for more money.

When staging your home for sale, one of the most important things to take into consideration is the buyer that you’re looking to sell to. You need to understand your buyer, what they would consider attractive about a property and what they would consider deal breakers.

Once you have understood that, you can then employ some, or all, of the below techniques to help make sure your house is looking its best for your potential buyers.

Include furniture

While the temptation may be to offer a potential buyer a blank canvas of a property, many buyers actually prefer to see some furniture in the rooms of a home so that they can see how the space measures up and what looks good.

So, instead of emptying your property completely, keep it furnished and laid out as you had it, so that your potential buyers can see how you used the space and what the house looks like with people actually living in it. That way, they can imagine what their time living there could be like.

Remove personal clutter

Making a house a home often includes adding personal touches around your place; anything from photographs of your family to unique and unusual souvenirs from trips abroad.

However, when a potential buyer is looking around a property, they don’t often want to view it as someone else’s home. Therefore, it can often be prudent to remove personal items and any clutter that comes with living in a property so that they can view it almost like a show home.

Take off the rose-tinted glasses

When you’ve lived in a home for a long time, it may be easy to view it through a bubble of nostalgia and fondness. This can sometimes cloud your judgement when selling because it can cause you to overlook problems or issues that may need fixing.

You’ll need to view your home, not sentimentally, but practically. Repair any issues that you were fine living with, such as a door that sticks, a creaky hinge, or a loose stair rail, because your potential buyers won’t be quite as forgiving as you might.

Don’t remove all personality

While it is prudent to remove the personal clutter that may have filled a home, such as photographs and toys, you shouldn’t remove all personality from the property entirely. While it is advisable to stick with neutral colours for walls – nothing a lick of paint can’t sort – don’t forget to include some pops of colour and soft furnishings to make the property look welcoming and homely.

Less is sometimes more

Try not to dominate your rooms with too many pieces of furniture or items since this can often leave potential buyers confused about the size of a room and put off by the cramped feeling.

Instead, why not highlight a few key pieces of furniture to use as statement pieces that draw the eye and fill the space, but don’t overwhelm it. The right presentation of a room can add a lot of value to a space and leave buyers much more appreciative of the layout and style.

Maximise the lighting

Presenting a badly lit room can really damage the representation of your property, making it dark and gloomy as opposed to open and welcoming. To counteract this issue, make sure to emphasise the space that you have with lampshades that allow the spread of light easily, and introducing standing lights or desk lights into your property.

Not only can this improve how favourably a potential buyer views your home, it can also help to highlight the details of your house.

Make sure all rooms have a function

There’s nothing worse than presenting a room that’s empty when the rest of your property is fully furnished or presenting a room that shows a mish-mash of different functions – like a gym/hobby room or a half-finished renovation.

Make sure that each room has a designated function. Potential buyers will always like to see more bedrooms in a home, since laying out a room as a bedroom shows that it will fit the necessities, but may also appreciate a well-organised craft room or home gym, as long as they are neat and tidy.

Don’t forget the outside

When staging your home for a sale, it’s important to not forget the first impression that potential buyers will have when visiting your home. The outside of your property will be the first perspective they see so we would advise maintaining plants and paths during the time you’re selling, plus mowing your lawn regularly, mending any broken fences or sheds, tending to flowerbeds and cleaning garden furniture.

Stick to your renovation budget

No matter what projects you need to undertake to renovate your home for sale, set a budget and make sure you stick to it. There’s nothing worse than spending a large amount of money on a renovation that wasn’t essential – the biggest spend doesn’t always make the biggest impact on a potential buyer.

Additionally, save some of your renovation budget for the smaller things, such as repairing small issues and making sure the place is clean before visitors.

If you’re looking to store any personal effects, clutter or furniture during the process of your home staging and sale, CitySpace storage can help. We’re able to offer self-storage units in a variety of different shapes and sizes, for as long or short a time as you need. Find out more about what we can offer here.